Press contact: Ida McCall FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 314.535.0770 x311 /
[email protected] MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF CONCEPTUAL ARTIST MEL CHIN On view September 5–December 20, 2014 HOME y SEW 9, 1994. Functional, surgical first-aid kit (micro-electronic distress beacon on FM band, ACE bandage, saline, narcotic, angiocatheter, epinephrine) within a GLOCK-17 9mm handgun 5 7/16 x 7 5/16 x 1 3/16 inches (each of 2 parts). Courtesy the artist. July 9, 2014 (St. Louis, MO) – The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents Mel Chin: Rematch, the most expansive presentation of conceptual artist Mel Chin’s work to date. On view September 5–December 20, 2014, the exhibition features approximately fifty works from the past forty years—including sculpture, video, drawing, painting, and rarely seen documentation of Chin’s public land art and performance works. Rematch provides an overview of Chin’s complex and diverse body of work, stressing the collaborative nature of many of the artist’s endeavors and exploring his engagement with social justice and community partnerships. Encompassing a wide variety of media, Chin’s work evades easy classification and often includes multi- disciplinary and cross-cultural teamwork. Chin frequently inserts art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and even popular television shows, investigating how art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. Chin has also produced a body of sculpture and drawings steeped in the legacy of Dada and Surrealism. Rematch highlights the thematic strands that run throughout Chin’s broad range of subject matter, materials, and formal approaches.